We All Looked Up

A heart-wrenching and thought-provoking debut that will keep you thinking long after you've finished. What would you do if you only 2 months to live?

That's the question We All Looked Up revolves around, and it's one you'll ask yourself more than once. Wallach poses that 66.6% of the world's population will be killed by the asteroid hurtling towards his fictional Earth and the question of what happens after is barely touched upon, because this book is all about the lead up to that apocalyptic event. It's a refreshing concept. I've read a heap of post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction, but the before is new for me. Still, that humanity basically goes crazy seems to be the common theme. Does it count as cliche when it's likely a true portrayal of what the reality would be? I don't know. I just know that that sort of thing - riots, murders, enforced Government control, basically humans killing each other before anything else gets the chance - gets old and frustrating fast for me, and so there were times - few and far between though - that I wanted We All Looked Up to move along a little faster. It's more me being nitpicky than the book itself being the issue. This is the only thing that holds me back from giving the novel 5 stars, because otherwise this book is fantastic.

I admit to being wary when I first realised it alternates between four points of view, but Wallach handles it masterfully. Each of these characters is so different and their voices so distinct. The story is stronger for these varied views because the outlooks, the choices, the beliefs, all give readers another way of looking - well, at everything. The characters, the idea of the end of the world, humanity, religion, priorities. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with each character at one point or another, feeling for them and being annoyed by them at others, and it makes for a more engaging read. Even Wallach's side characters are standout - Bobo, Misery, Golden, Chad, Anita's parents. They each make their own impact. All at once Wallach's characters have you full of hope and despairing at the futility of it all.

As I said earlier, you won't be able to help but question what you would do if the world as you know it was ending in 2 months. Do something you always wanted to but put off? Go somewhere? Be with family? Make amends? Fall in love? It was interesting reading this as a 31 year old, asking that question of my present, but then thinking about my teenage self facing such a possibility. It's one of the more heartbreaking realisastions of this novel, that the characters may not have the opportunity to grow up and experience life outside of high school. Wallach closes the novel on the perfect note, open ended and bittersweet. After finishing I wanted to simply take a moment to just breathe. To just sit and be.

We All Looked Up is a hard hitting narrative that is bound to leave its mark.

This is a very thoughtful debut novel about teenagers in their last year of school, on the cusp of adulthood and independence with their whole lives to look forward to who suddenly find that their world may end in a few weeks when an asteroid collides with Earth.

The author takes four stereotypical characters - Peter the handsome sports star looking forward to being a college athlete, Eliza the sluttish girl who sleeps with anyone, Anita, the nerdy good girl who does what her parents say and Andy the skater who bums around with bad boys and drug dealers - and places them in a situation where everything they held to be true slowly unravels. They are all forced to suddenly grow up and confront their own natures and decide what is important. Teenage hormones still rage and they fall in and out of love, fight and argue and the stereotypes drop away as they decide how they want to live the rest of their lives.

All the characters were interesting and well written as the story moved seamlessly from one point of view to another as each character told their side of the story. The novel is not so much about an impending apocalypse as about how we live our lives and treat each other when all other artifice has been stripped away.

Woah. That was pretty much all that was running through my mind when I finished reading this book. What a story and what an ending!

This story is divided into 10 parts, with each part containing 4 chapters, one from each of our main characters. We meet our main characters around the same time they find out that there is a giant meteor headed towards Earth named Ardor. While initially not considered a big deal, Ardor quickly becomes a source of panic when it’s realised that the trajectory is poised to potentially collide with Earth in two months’ time. There’s a 33.3% chance that it won’t hit Earth, but the overwhelming view is that the world will end in 2 months.

After reading that synopsis, I expected this book to have a real Breakfast Club feel. The Breakfast Club is one of my favourite movies and We All Looked Up definitely had that vibe to it. Each of the main characters was similar to one of the main characters in the film and the characters all go through significant change throughout the novel, only with a more sinister reason behind it. Peter suffers an existential crisis, growing a social consciousness and wanting more than to just be the athlete with the perfect girlfriend. Anita can no longer stand to be the overachieving princess her parents expect her to be, viewing Ardor as a chance to break free. Andy is a slacker-type, easily manipulated and dragged down by his criminal friends. And then you have Eliza, the outcast, who is a bit of a combination of the misfit and princess characters in The Breakfast Club. Each character was connected via six degrees of separation at the start of the book, becoming closer and more intertwined as time went on.

At times, I did struggle to connect with this book a little. Not very often, and it was only here and there that it happened. This may have partly been because I couldn’t sit down and read it decent sized sittings, having to content myself with mostly small chunks here and there. Who knows? At times I struggled to connect with the romance, although that’s probably because it was completely realistic! Love isn’t easy, especially during your teenaged years, and Wallach certainly managed to capture that. I also struggled whenever Andy’s friend Bobo and his criminal friend Golden reared their ugly heads. I couldn’t for the life of me work out why Andy put up with them! While I kind of understood why he allowed himself to be manipulated, especially by Bobo, it didn’t make it any easier to read. Of course, if this book was all sunshine and rainbows, it wouldn’t have been realistic and it likely would have suffered for it.

Despite this, I haven’t been able to switch my brain off since I put this down. Unlike some other books, this book made me think, and it made me wonder how I’d react if the end of the world was hurtling towards us with no end in sight. I’m a firm believer in “whatever will be, will be” but I have no idea how I’d react if faced with something of this magnitude. I also don’t think that a disaster like this would bring out the best in many people, and this was clearly demonstrated in We All Looked Up. The criminals took advantage of the situation and the authority figures became more and more heavy handed. People were also instilled with the “flight or fight” response, many choosing to leave and hide somewhere rather than stay and continue life as normal. We’ve seen time and time again in history how people react to life changing events, and I think Wallach captured a true insight into the human psyche with his debut novel.

I think I’d definitely benefit from a reread of this book, there was so much to take in and it was such an evocative read for only one go through. A realistic and heartwrenching read, We All Looked Up both terrified and moved me. I doubt I’ll forget it anytime soon.